Some parents are seeking to have their children educated in charter schools. Most of these schools have so-called themes or agendas. These include green, performing arts, nutrition, environment, among others. Basic education subjects such as math, reading, writing are secondary. Some of these schools even allow students to do whatever they wish.

This is all well and good, except they are doing it at the expense of local school districts, which must provide the funding for them. While our local public schools are hard pressed to provide basic supplies and learning materials for their students, some charter schools are providing laptops for all their pupils. This at the expense of stressed local school budgets.

Take for example, Inspire School of Arts and Sciences. Chico Unified School District is providing $7,455,500 (estimated) for upgrades to the Chapman school campus. Neighborhood students will eventually be bused out. Where was this money before Inspire showed up?

We are starting to head back to the ’60s of school segregation. Charter schools’ percentage of low income, minority, disabled, and students with learning disabilities is minuscule. Their students are mainly hand picked from affluent families, leaving the public schools to educate some of the more challenging students with less funds.

Nearly $7.5 million to a charter school in these times? If parents want segregated schools with alternate agendas, they should be free and able to do such, but not by draining the stressed budgets of our public school district.